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  • Moti­on Schwei­ger (06.3170): Com­ba­ting cyber­crime to pro­tect child­ren on elec­tro­nic networks 

Moti­on Schwei­ger (06.3170): Com­ba­ting cyber­crime to pro­tect child­ren on elec­tro­nic networks

Moti­on Schwei­ger (06.3170): Com­ba­ting cyber­crime to pro­tect child­ren on elec­tro­nic networks
Writ­ten off on 17.06.2015 in con­nec­tion with the dis­cus­sion of busi­ness 13.025

Sub­mit­ted text

In order to pro­tect child­ren and to enable more effec­ti­ve action against cri­mes com­mit­ted on elec­tro­nic net­works (the Inter­net), the Fede­ral Coun­cil is cal­led upon to take the mea­su­res neces­sa­ry to bet­ter com­bat child-rela­ted crime on the Inter­net as soon as pos­si­ble. In par­ti­cu­lar, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is cal­led upon to:

1. to draft a bill to amend Artic­le 197(3bis) SCC to cri­mi­na­li­ze the inten­tio­nal con­sump­ti­on of dis­plays of hard­core pornography;

2. to draw up a bill to amend Artic­le 15 para­graph 3 BÜPF and increa­se the obli­ga­ti­on to retain log files from six to twel­ve months and to impo­se an appro­pria­te penal­ty for fail­ure to com­ply with this provision;

3. to draft a bill to amend Artic­les 4 BVE and 3 BÜPF with the aim of estab­li­shing a list of offen­ces com­mon to the two laws and to include Artic­le 197 para­graph 3bis SCC in it;

4. deve­lop an action plan for secu­ring the con­tent of Inter­net sites and hold Inter­net pro­vi­ders and hosters accoun­ta­ble. The pro­vi­ders should be obli­ged to make available to Inter­net users, free of char­ge, the pro­grams neces­sa­ry for fil­te­ring Inter­net con­tent, as well as all the infor­ma­ti­on neces­sa­ry for set­ting and using them. For their part, Inter­net hosters should be requi­red to regu­lar­ly scan their ser­vers to ensu­re the lega­li­ty of the data stored there.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

The mea­su­res reque­sted abo­ve are neces­sa­ry becau­se they legis­la­te the fight against cyber­crime in gene­ral and offen­ses against the inte­gri­ty and dignity of child­ren in par­ti­cu­lar at three levels.

1 Alt­hough Artic­le 197 (3bis) SCC only came into force on April 1, 2001, que­sti­ons are alre­a­dy being asked about the inter­pre­ta­ti­on, the scope of appli­ca­ti­on and the prac­ti­cal hand­ling of the norm. For exam­p­le, the con­cept of pos­ses­si­on ulti­m­ate­ly depends on the consumer’s indi­vi­du­al IT skills, becau­se only tho­se con­su­mers of child por­no­gra­phy who do not know how to emp­ty the cache memo­ry of their Inter­net brow­ser are lia­ble to pro­se­cu­ti­on. This results in a dif­fe­rent tre­at­ment of child por­no­gra­phy con­su­mers with and tho­se wit­hout the cor­re­spon­ding exper­ti­se. This legal situa­ti­on is unsa­tis­fac­to­ry. After all, the con­su­mer of pedo-por­no­gra­phy who visits Inter­net sites with cor­re­spon­ding con­tent but has no fur­ther IT know­ledge is beha­ving just as cri­mi­nal­ly towards the child as the per­son who knows how to gain access to the cache memo­ry of his brow­ser. The pro­po­sed amend­ment has the initi­al advan­ta­ge of sen­ding a clear mes­sa­ge that the con­sump­ti­on of child por­no­gra­phy will not be tole­ra­ted in any form. Moreo­ver, the legal­ly dif­fi­cult que­sti­on of a defi­ni­ti­on of “pos­ses­si­on” of pedo-por­no­gra­phic files would be sol­ved. On the other hand, peo­p­le who surf on sites with con­tent of soft por­no­gra­phy and would be con­fron­ted with child por­no­gra­phic images, for exam­p­le, through a pop-up win­dow, would not have to worry about such a chan­ged legal situa­ti­on, sin­ce only their inten­tio­nal con­sump­ti­on would be punis­ha­ble. Final­ly, the risk of unju­sti­fi­ed mea­su­res on the part of law enforce­ment aut­ho­ri­ties, such as hou­se sear­ches, would not be increa­sed at all.

2 Prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence has shown that the obli­ga­ti­on to retain log files on the part of Inter­net ser­vice pro­vi­ders is too short and that law enforce­ment aut­ho­ri­ties often sim­ply do not have enough time for their inve­sti­ga­ti­ons. Accor­din­gly, the pro­po­sed amend­ment to the law aims to increa­se this peri­od to twel­ve months, thus ensu­ring that the aut­ho­ri­ties have access to data that is essen­ti­al for inve­sti­ga­ti­ons to be car­ri­ed out on the Inter­net. Fur­ther­mo­re, it is impe­ra­ti­ve that the vio­la­ti­on of this obli­ga­ti­on be accom­pa­nied by an appro­pria­te penalty.

3 The BVE as well as the BÜPF are both part of a series of mea­su­res taken to fight orga­ni­zed crime. Howe­ver, the two laws have dif­fe­rent are­as of appli­ca­ti­on and the­r­e­fo­re do not always app­ly tog­e­ther. It is the­r­e­fo­re neces­sa­ry to draw up a list of offen­ces com­mon to them and to include in it Artic­le 197(3bis) SCC, which ente­red into force fol­lo­wing the Fede­ral Council’s dis­patch on the BÜPF and the BVE (BBI 2000 2943). The aim of this mea­su­re is to coor­di­na­te the prac­ti­cal hand­ling of the BVE and the BÜPF, two laws that ser­ve to inve­sti­ga­te par­ti­cu­lar­ly serious cri­mi­nal offences.

4 All too often, par­ents are indif­fe­rent to the dan­gers that the Inter­net poses for their child­ren. All too often, par­ents are also una­wa­re of the exi­stence of fil­te­ring pro­grams that can be used to rest­rict access to sites that end­an­ger the healt­hy deve­lo­p­ment of child­ren. It is the­r­e­fo­re neces­sa­ry to obli­ge Inter­net pro­vi­ders to make such pro­grams and all rela­ted infor­ma­ti­on available to their cus­to­mers free of char­ge. For their part, the Inter­net hosts should be obli­ged to regu­lar­ly check the con­tents loca­ted on their ser­vers in order to pre­vent the publi­ca­ti­on of pages that vio­la­te the dignity of child­ren. This mea­su­re aims to pro­vi­de bet­ter pro­tec­tion to child­ren using the Internet.

State­ment of the Fede­ral Council

Item 1

The Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that para­graph 1 of the moti­on be accepted.

Item 2, first part (exten­si­on of the reten­ti­on period)

The que­sti­on of whe­ther the reten­ti­on peri­od for mar­gi­nal data should be exten­ded to one year in accordance with Artic­le 15 (3) BÜPF is also being exami­ned in a broa­der con­text – i.e. not just in rela­ti­on to child por­no­gra­phy – as part of the tre­at­ment of the postu­la­te SPK-SR 05.3006 of 21 Febru­ary 2005, “More effi­ci­ent com­ba­ting of ter­ro­rism and orga­ni­zed crime”. The cor­re­spon­ding report has not yet been adopted by the Fede­ral Coun­cil. The Fede­ral Coun­cil does not want to anti­ci­pa­te the con­tent of this dis­cus­sion at this point in time. It has alre­a­dy sta­ted in the Dis­patch on the Uni­fi­ca­ti­on of Cri­mi­nal Pro­ce­du­re Law that the que­sti­on of the reten­ti­on peri­od can only be defi­ni­tively deci­ded once the results of the afo­re­men­tio­ned report are available (cf. BBl 2006 1251). For the­se rea­sons, the Fede­ral Coun­cil requests that the exten­si­on of the reten­ti­on peri­od in accordance with point 2 of the moti­on be rejected.

Point 2, second part (penal pro­vi­si­on against dis­re­gar­ding the obli­ga­ti­on to keep records).

The Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses to accept the crea­ti­on of a spe­cial penal pro­vi­si­on for sanc­tio­ning vio­la­ti­ons of the obli­ga­ti­on to pre­ser­ve records in accordance with item 2 of the motion.

Item 3

The cata­logs of cri­mi­nal offen­ses for the pro­se­cu­ti­on of which postal or tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons traf­fic may be moni­to­red or an under­co­ver inve­sti­ga­ti­on orde­red are not con­gru­ent. This means that under­co­ver inve­sti­ga­tors can­not be “accom­pa­nied” by tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sur­veil­lan­ce in all of their ope­ra­ti­ons. In the draft Swiss Code of Cri­mi­nal Pro­ce­du­re, the cata­logs of offen­ses for tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sur­veil­lan­ce and the use of under­co­ver inve­sti­ga­tors are the­r­e­fo­re har­mo­ni­zed (cf. Arts. 268 and 285 E‑StPO and BBl 2006 1256). Howe­ver, it is not appro­pria­te to bring about com­ple­te con­for­mi­ty bet­ween the two cata­logs of offen­ces: A covert inve­sti­ga­ti­on is not a sui­ta­ble mea­su­re for every cri­mi­nal offen­se that can be inve­sti­ga­ted by means of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons sur­veil­lan­ce. In addi­ti­on, the estab­lish­ment of a uni­form cata­log of offen­ses would not do justi­ce to the legislature’s inten­ti­on to per­mit covert inve­sti­ga­ti­ons only to a limi­t­ed ext­ent becau­se of the spe­cial pro­blems they pose for the rule of law. This is also expres­sed in the fact that tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons inter­cep­ti­on is only per­mit­ted if the “serious­ness of the offence” justi­fi­es it (Art. 3 para. 1 let. b BÜPF), while covert inve­sti­ga­ti­on requi­res sus­pi­ci­on of “par­ti­cu­lar­ly serious offen­ces” (Art. 4 para. 1 let. a BVE).

An argu­ment against the inclu­si­on of Artic­le 197 para­graph 3bis SCC in the cata­logs of offen­ses of the BÜPF and BVE is that the pro­vi­si­on only threa­tens the offen­der with impri­son­ment of up to one year or a fine, and the offen­ses cover­ed are the­r­e­fo­re not com­pa­ra­ble in terms of their seve­ri­ty with the offen­ses listed in the­se catalogs.

For the­se rea­sons, the Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that para­graph 3 of the moti­on be rejected.

Item 4

The pro­po­sed obli­ga­ti­on for Inter­net pro­vi­ders to pro­vi­de porn fil­ter soft­ware to cus­to­mers would hard­ly impro­ve the pro­tec­tion of child­ren. It could pro­ve coun­ter­pro­duc­ti­ve in prac­ti­ce, becau­se it is to be feared that it will give cus­to­mers a fal­se sen­se of secu­ri­ty and that access pro­vi­ders will resort to cheap pro­ducts who­se pro­tec­ti­ve func­tion is very limi­t­ed. It is much more important that users are infor­med about the exi­sting risks and dan­gers by con­stant­ly impro­ving education.

The fur­ther pro­po­sal to requi­re hosting pro­vi­ders to peri­odi­cal­ly scan the con­tent stored with them is hard­ly fea­si­ble from a tech­ni­cal point of view. Lar­ger hosting pro­vi­ders have enorm­ous amounts of data (thou­sands of giga­bytes) that are sub­ject to con­stant chan­ges by con­tent pro­vi­ders (aut­hors). Apart from the lack of tech­ni­cal pos­si­bi­li­ties to search such lar­ge data sets for ille­gal con­tent in a rea­sonable time, ano­ther pro­blem would be the scope of such an obli­ga­ti­on. Depen­ding on the demand for com­ple­ten­ess and tho­rough­ness of such sear­ches, scans will pro­du­ce a lar­ger or smal­ler amount of error mes­sa­ges, which would have to be checked manu­al­ly in a time-inten­si­ve man­ner and requi­re cor­re­spon­ding resour­ces. Such an effort could hard­ly be justi­fi­ed against the back­ground of the Inter­net as a real-time medi­um. In its report published in June 2003, the Expert Com­mis­si­on on Net­work Crime cle­ar­ly sta­ted that pre­ven­ti­ve con­trol by pro­vi­ders is not a sen­si­ble mea­su­re (p. 39).

For the­se rea­sons, the Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that para­graph 4 of the moti­on be rejected.

Report of the Com­mis­si­on for Legal Affairs (S) of Novem­ber 5, 2007.

Report of the Com­mis­si­on for Legal Affairs (N) of Novem­ber 30, 2006.